Summer on the Sturgeon

With all of the rain, the North Saskatchewan has been a touch high these past few weeks. So I drove out to St Albert to paddle on the Sturgeon River. The Sturgeon is more of a spring paddle.

The river tends to be much lower in the summer (it often two feet lower than in the spring) and this year is no exception. It was still possible to get in at the Mission boat launch without walking on the muddy bottom, but only barely. The real challenge was the weeds.

The river was choked with weeds pretty much the whole way from downtown to Ray Gibson's Drive. This means way more friction on the boat and also a lot tougher paddling.

It was still better than being in the office (and I had the river to myself) but likely the Sturgeon is done for the summer. Oh well--hopefully we're off to a new (to us) pond up by Morinville in the next week or so.